53 Days to Spring

As we neared the end of Christmas break last week, I was having a really hard time staying positive.  Matt had 3 weeks off school and only had to work 3 of the 17 days the boys were off school (this is the most time he's had off around Christmas since we've had kids).  It was wonderful after all the stress of getting him through his first semester of school, along with sports for our 10 year old and the start of full-time school for our 5 year old.  I didn't realize how much I was really holding onto Christmas and Christmas break to get me through the fall.  Until it was all over.

Staring down at January not only meant the cold and dark that I dread every year but also Luke's wrestling would be in full force, Matt would be back to school, he would be starting clinicals on what had been his 2 days off to do schoolwork, and it would be MONTHS until there was any sort of break (in fact, it's more than 6 months away until Matt & the boys are all off school at the same time again...and then after that it won't be again until Matt's done in December).  

It was looking REALLY hard to stay positive.  I love Christmastime and look forward to it all year and the thought of having to pack it all up was just another thing I didn't want to think about.  Any sort of relief felt very far off with little to look forward to.  Plus, winter is just so dang dark and cold.  

So I counted the days until March 1st, when I declare spring has started (I do not care if anyone else agrees with me...March 1st is the first day of spring for me).  It was 53 days from when the boys and Matt went back to school until the start of spring.  Wrestling won't be done then but close to it and everyone is still in school but the thought of just some warmth, more sunlight, flowers blooming...that feels like something I can look forward to.  

In order to keep myself distracted and busy for those 53 days I decided to make a project list.  53 little nagging tasks to get done, one for each day (even if that's not how they happen).  Some of this might be overlap with my 24 in 2024 list (which I have yet to complete) but more it's just little tasks that I notice and think "I should take care of that..." and then I don't.  I never realize how much time CHRISTMAS takes in my schedule until it's all done and I'm not at school constantly or planning a class party or anything.  So this will help fill that void (along with maybe more reading and puzzles).  Productivity or completing a project can usually help me turn a sad mood around so having a pre-figured out list to keep me busy should help.  And if not, at least I will have gotten a lot of little things done!  

1. Clean under the buffet - dust bunnies galore
2. Tape down my office rug - it doesn't like to stay straight
3. Get rid of the coffee and end table that have been on our porch for...8 months
4. Get rid of rocking horse from the basement (this one has been done!)
5. Clean under the tv stand - again, the dust bunnies
6. Clean inside the tv stand
7. Tape down the upstairs landing rug - it NEVER stays in place
8. Clean sharpie off porch walls - this is more of an attempt...I don't know if it'll work
9. Reorganize the game cupboard - maybe the biggest project on this list...need to shuffle things around to account for new games.
10. Hang Valentine's Day hearts in windows - I've been doing this many year, using the same hearts!  (they are very faded).
11. Clean out my clothes closet
12. Clean out my dresser clothes
13. Do a Lego set (I might have a backlog of sets to do).
14. Enter winter book list - our library switched systems last fall and I had to screenshot all my saved book lists in their old app.  I only entered the Christmas lists because that's what I was checking out when the app went back up.  I need to catch up the rest.
15. Enter spring book list
16. Enter summer book list
17. Enter fall book list
18. Fix Google Analytics - they upgraded this last year and I never fixed mine
19. Clean mealy bugs off my pothos - I successfully did this with one plant in December, need to do the other!
20. Paint touchups in the stairs
21. Catch up file box 
22. Clean out file folders in file cabinet
23. Book our family camping trip
24. Book an early summer camping trip (did this!)
25. Book a late summer camping trip
26. Clean up box stash in the basement - started this after we were done wrapping for Christmas but need to clean it up some more
27. Transplant snake plant - it's mostly dead, I need to transplant the one live part
28. Dust behind our bed - I can see it with the gap in our headboard/mattress but need to do something about it because it's awkward to get to
29. Make another snowflake for a window - I have the window mostly filled but there is one gap left
30. Do Chicago pages in Luke's photobook - I have the boys' photobooks caught up through November except for our 2023 trips.
    
31. Do Cuyahoga pages in Luke's photobook
32. Do Cocoa Beach pages in Luke's photobook
33. Do Chicago pages in Sam's photobook
34. Do Cuyahoga pages in Sam's photobook
35. Do Cocoa Beach pages in Sam's photobook
36. Finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Luke - we started this in maybe November.  It's a LONG book!
37. Sweep under the stove - you may think your house is fairly clean until you move a large kitchen appliance
38. Fill planter Dad made for Christmas
39. Replace plant on the kitchen counter - the one there died recently
40. Reset Speedway PIN - I have a lot of Speedy points I could be using for free frozen cokes (when I get them) but I don't know the PIN.
41. Plan boys' birthday party (although March is a BUSY month)
42. Buy some frames - a small part of a 24 in 2024 project, a starting step!
43. Pick some prints for said frames
44. Hit 100 things decluttered - although, if I'm going to hit 1000 again this year I should be more like 160, 2 months in...
45. Consolidate candles - I burn the same candle all Christmas season, have for year, so in January I combine all the unburnt parts and make a bonus candle.  
46. Log book quotes on Goodreads - I usually take a picture of a good line with my phone and let that languish on my computer forever, need to catch these up
47. Bake kool-aid cookies - before Lent starts!
48. clean kitchen picture ledges - not a place I dust regularly
49. photograph some of the boys' art - I am so behind on this project, I need to commit to working on it if I really want to do it!
50. Finish a puzzle - it'll probably be closer to at least 3...
51. Buy a plant that would stay alive in a windowless bathroom - does such a thing exist??
52. Buy a bouquet of flowers
53. Plan something for summer

Is this list very random?  Yes, it is.  It's a "I wrote things down in the order they occurred to me".  But I am excited to check a lot of these items off the long suffering and never completed "little things that I should just do" mental list?  Yes.  And I will take any enthusiasm for nearly anything right now!  Spring is just about 50 days away!

Cleaning it Up: Basement Utility Storage

One of the bigger projects that Matt was particularly wanting to tackle this year was our utility area at the bottom of the basement stairs.  Our basement ends up holding all sorts of random storage (such as our pantry - which has much more food and much few canning jars than 6 years ago) because there is just no other space.  And that includes all the random household items like light bulbs, batteries, extra/heavy cleaning supplies, etc. 

This project was on my 23 in 2023 list but then sped along a bit because we had 3 basement floods over 10 days in the spring.  In 17+ years in our house our basement had only flooded one other time, when our water heater burst over a decade ago.  We're pretty sure we resolved the leaks and haven't had any problems in many months.  But that did mean we tore out everything that was there earlier than expected.

We've lived with some similar version of this for nearly our whole time in this house.

This was almost entirely Matt's project.  I gave some design input and then did the final organizing but he did all the real work.  He was especially interested in including space for his after work clothes change.  Ever since COVID he's been changing out of his scrubs in the basement (where the laundry is) to avoid germ spreading through the whole house (regardless of COVID...working at a hospital exposes him to all sorts of germs).  So adding in that area and a place to put on and off his shoes, ala Mr. Rogers, was part of it.  

I was very excited for how much better we'd be able to organize all those miscellaneous household items down here, instead of the hodgepodge we'd been living with nearly as long as we've had this house.  

Looking back at the before pictures...even I forgot how much of a mess it was.  This took Matt MANY hours but is so much more functional and aesthetically pleasing, it's the fanciest part of our basement!

The pull-out shelves on the left, under the bench, are for mine & Matt's "dirty" shoes.  The ones we use for yard work, mowing (Matt, not me), etc.  Luke's are in the mudroom because that's as much as we can get him to put them away and since he does most of our mowing...we'll let that go.  Matt has a variety of his project clothes down there too.  The stuff that apparently isn't dirty enough to wash but too clean to be put away.  I don't know, I only have my dirty work sweatshirt down there.

The really fun part for me were the drawers.  Matt customized those so that we could fit taller things in the bottom one and then have plenty of space in the others.  I found a bunch of storage baskets on clearance at Hobby Lobby in the spring and stocked up on enough to organize all of them.  Note, I did NOT clean our cleaning supplies before taking pictures so please excuse the dust.  Starting on the bottom:

This drawer Matt made specifically tall enough to hold our bucket.  I bought that bucket over a decade ago to use with the floor scrubber thing I used on our kitchen floors.  I've been using a steam mop for awhile but still have the bucket.  I guess it's a handy thing to hold on to??  And that's a bottle of vinegar inside of it, for lack of a better place to put it.  The rest are special car cleaning things, headlight shiners, and lesser used cleaning supplies like bleach.

Organizing the drawers was just trial and error to see how everything fit.  The mass of black in the back are all trash bags I bought from a school fundraiser...and haven't even touched 2 years later.  We don't go through a lot of trash bags.  Then some extra hydrogen peroxide, extra rubbing alcohol, my extra laundry detergent sheets, a variety of pest control items, and window plastic sealer things which we haven't used in a few winters.  Should we still have those???  Maybe not.

Here's some electrical things - extra light bulbs, all of the rechargable batteries, and then a variety of things for holding things together: clothes pins, command strips, velcro tie things, etc.  I like that none of these drawers are packed which makes opening them a little bit easier, just more soothing.  Plus, space to rearrange, if needed.

Top drawer is more electrical - a basket of extension cords, a basket of flashlights (that was especially satisfying to put together, we had had them ALL over the house), a basket of various plug things. Childproofing things in the back (do we still need those??? I don't know, there's a lot I don't know in this post, apparently), and extra contact paper just because this is where it fit. 

Please excuse the dark pictures, the basement doesn't get the best light!  We hung back up my battery organizer, for the non-rechargeable batteries.  The larger open shelf has bins for collecting batteries to be recycled.  There's also my sharps container for the bi-weekly injection I do for my RA.  The top has an empty basket, the larger one where I recently put my new steamer (will it stay there?? I don't know) (it's the same steamer the whole internet seems to have and it's been very satisfying to use, I need to get back to it! Aff. Link.), and then a roll of heavy duty liner which doesn't fit in that basket but that's there it's been for now!

A good before and after!  HUGE improvement over what we had!  The old wire shelves were constantly falling apart and now everything is sorted so much better too.  I didn't quite see the point when Matt started talking about this last year but I'm very glad he did and then got it done.  It's made a huge difference in our basement organizing.

Purging 1,000 Things in 365 Days

There are a lot of things in my house.  Just so many physical things.  If I didn't even count each individual Lego piece...it would still be A LOT of items.  More than I probably care to think about.  I have been working on some form of minimalism for years and writing about it nearly as long and yet, there is still too many things in this house.

For some reason I started following Casey @that.minimalist.mom on Instagram last year.  It may have been on the recommendation of my sister.  And then at some point Casey started reposting pictures people had done of her purging 1000 things challenge.  And I was feeling the itch to get rid of things, had been texting with my sister for months on the topic.  So I asked her if she wanted to try to get rid of 1000 things in 2023 with me.  Then we roped in another sister (who, by the way, is kicking both of our butts). 

Despite having many things in this house, finding 1000 things to get rid of is still a great many things.  That comes out to roughly 83 per month.  Or nearly 3 items a day for an entire year.  I had done a good deal of purging last fall especially when I discovered the magic of my local Buy Nothing group which has 850 members and I've only had handful of things that nobody has claimed.  That really motivated me last year to do some serious kitchen cleaning out especially.  It was much easier when I just had to coordinate with someone to pick it up off my porch and I wasn't trying to safely donate wine glasses!

But...1000 things.  That felt like a lot.  Even though I thought we were somewhat minimalists...I realized we had been getting more lax with the number of things coming in the house.  I partially blame trying to keep the spending and number of gifts even on the boys.  That's not easy!  And then it ends up adding one more to one and then the other and back and forth, it's hard to even those out!  But also, just feeling like we were doing a decent of enough job of having less things.  We had less than we did early in our marriage, maybe.  Although adding kids always adds stuff.  But 1000 items felt like a bit of a stretch but, maybe, doable goal.

I am not to 1000 things, yet.  However, I am over 400 and am hoping to hit 500 by the end of the month. Can I still find another 500?  I do not know.  What I do know is how clarifying this exercise has been.

It started with easy items, I only got to 50ish in January and none of that was too hard.  There are always extras.  I did ok in February but it was March when I really took off.  I had over 200 items added to my count in March and once I started to get rid of things, it was hard to stop.  It turned into such a mindset shift that even I, who had written and been getting rid of things for years, was amazed.  

Things no longer got to stay here just because we had had them for awhile or because someone had gifted them to us (although, to be honest, that second one has rarely stopped me in the past).  I was reconsidering nearly everything in our downstairs.  Do we really need this?  Do we really like this?  Why are we keeping this??  Our 1200 square feet are valuable and precious, why am I giving some of that up to this stuff???

I finally realized that the less we bought the less we had to store.  I know.  It makes sense.  But I stopped stocking up on gifts to give, toiletries, and groceries.  We still have some of all of that...but less than we did!  Target is always going to be there for me.  I might pay a few bucks more for something not on sale but I am also spared from storing something for months or years until I get to using it.  

There have been unopened gifts we bought to give people that I've returned to Target.  I've gifted partial toiletries on Buy Nothing.  I got rid of a variety of hotel samples and the like on Buy Nothing.  I've been using up candles, using up our food stashes, and, in general, just buying less.  Less to buy less to store less to own. 

I've been cleaning out my iTunes of songs I only listen to when they pop up on my "haven't listened to in 75 days" playlist.  I've been recycling magazine clippings from shows and movies I haven't watched in years.  I stopped holding onto my old issues of HGTV magazine.  I buy-nothing group partially used adult coloring books (after I tore out the pages I used).  I cleaned out my stash of blue & green wine bottles (had someone happy to take them on Buy Nothing).  I keep going through, again and again, the lower level of our house.  I haven't even touched much in our upstairs yet although that is coming!  

I didn't realize how much extra our house held.  But it was a lot.

It's not just owning less that has changed in my head but also just using what we have.  I hung in our laundry area two pictures that had been sitting in a storage area for years.  To be fair, those walls are new and I wouldn't have had a wall to hang them on a few years ago, but they are up now!  I'm eyeing the spaghetti that has been in the pantry for...awhile....and working it into the dinner rotation.  I'm considering just how many t-shirts my 5 year old needs in his drawer (small hint, it's not the 28 that were in there at one point...I can't explain that one.)

Throughout the month of March, especially, I had had a huge change in my attitude towards things.  We gave the boys, and ourselves, less for Easter and reallocated that money to our vacation fund.  We lowered our budget for their birthday and adoption gifts.  We don't need more things.  We have things.  We're still buying Lego sets but it is at a slower rate than before!  I didn't add as many "extras" to the Easter baskets.  It's just been a general mindset shift of LESS.

This is not what I expected when I set out to race my sisters to getting rid of 1000 things this year.  A race I am losing.  We are cheering each other one and have nearly daily texts about what counts as one item (my sister told me I should count each Lego box I got rid of...which got me around 20 boxes crossed off).  The lines aren't perfect, I'm not counting each sheet of paper I clean out of the file cabinet, but it has been HUGELY motivating in just reducing what we have.

It feels like our house has more space, a little more breathing room.  Cupboards that were near to stuffed full before now...aren't.  I've been through some spaces 3 times and STILL find things I can get rid of each time!  I'm realizing more and more the less we need and how much freeing it is to just have fewer things.  Fewer things to take care of and store and make us think about if we want to use them or not.  

We are entering a busier stage of life.  Luke will be in sports at least two seasons starting in the fall.  Sam will be in school.  Matt might be entering a busier season.  There is never a bad time to try to have less.  (Although, there are certainly times it might be harder to devote time to purging, it's not a quick activity!)  BUT...looking ahead to a busier season coming, it's certainly worthwhile to get some of life simplified before then, even if it's just in the number of things we own.

Having few things in our house has made me want to simplify my decisions, spend less money, and crave open spaces, less packed cupboards and drawers.  I wasn't expecting that when I started but it has been the biggest benefit of this whole project.  Even if I don't hit 1000...this project has been a win.

 

The Hardest Working Rooms in Our House

One of the many great things about living in a small house (besides the lower cost to buy, lower cost to furnish, lower cost to heat/cool/light) is that we use every single room of our house nearly every single day that we are home.  There might be the rare Sunday in the summer when nobody enters my office but that is really the only exception I can think of.  Every room needs to be used and most room need to have multiple purposes.  It is the only way we can live in 1200 square feet (which, still, isn't that small of a house.  When our house was built in the 1930s this was a much more typical house size).   

There are some rooms that do more of the heavy lifting in this house.  We have 8 rooms, not including the stairway or basement, and 3 in particular do A LOT for us.  Our bedrooms are primarily for sleeping, storing clothes, and quiet time (Sam on weekdays and myself on weekends).  The bathroom is used solely for bathroom-type purposes (besides the occasional parental hideout) and the kitchen is mostly kitchen purposes although, as most families know, that kitchen table can pull multiple duties (not just eating but homework and crafts too).  

Our porch is fantastic but only useful about 2/3 of the year, pending weather.  It's mostly used for porch-things (sitting, reading, enjoying the sunshine, great light for picture taking).  It's the remaining three rooms of our house, covering about half our square footage, that pull most of their weight.

My Office
First up is my office.  We designated a room off the front room as my office from the first time we went through our house.  It has closets but no door, thus harder to make into a bedroom.  It's not lost on me the great privilege it is that both Matt & myself have our own separate offices in our small space.  This room not only holds my desk, computer, bookshelf (and a portion of my books), printer, file cabinet, etc. but also a HECK of a lot of storage is packed into the built in cabinets behind me as I type this.

Our coat closet is in here, even though it's almost as far as your can get from our most used door on this floor.  That also means winter boots (when they aren't drying off) and winter gear (hats, gloves, scarves, etc.).  Also in that same cabinet are Sam's church picture books, the main set of crayons, and most of the coloring books.  Coloring usually happens on the coffee table ~10 feet away so this is where they go.

We also store a variety of extra office/school supplies in here (I have a stash going on items that we will probably need on next year's supply list but was sold in too big of a quantity last year), cards waiting to be mailed, cards waiting on a recipient.  Normal office things.  As well as our DSLR, some school books for Sam, all of our out of season picture books (you have no idea the delight I experienced when I realized I could put those in the far back of the cabinet, using our ladder to get to, and just shuffle them out as needed.  It's a glorious system that I am outgrowing too quick.  They are barely noticeable from the ground.).  I even snuck in some extra Christmas decor with all of my big bottle brush trees (truly an obsession) and a few other of my larger fake trees (mirrored and ceramic) stashed up there.  There are few things more exciting than finding things to purge or rearrange thus freeing up new storage spaces.  (And I KNOW I can fit at least a few more bottle brushes up there come November/December).

The other cabinet is slightly less exciting with the vacuum, rarely used iron & ironing board, and swiffer (as well as my color guard rifle & sabre!  The boys are always entertained when I pull those out.).  Up above is my decades in boxes, more office excess, and food trays and cupcake courier at the top since there is no space for them in the kitchen.  

So besides office things we have cleaning supplies, coat room, and seasonal storage happening in here.  This is the laziest of our 3 hard working room.

Front Room
Our front room is the central part of our house.  We've called it the front room for 16 years and have no good reason for that other than it is in the front of our house.  It's never been the living room or the family room because, really, it's so much more than either of those.  It's always "the front room".  

The boys each have a (messy) desk in the back of the room, more for storing their various treasures although Sam does sit at his sometimes.  It's on my spring break project list to clean those up.  There is also the buffet which holds out of season holiday kitchen towels & potholders (and I claim to be something of a minimalist...), decks of cards & card games, and candles.  The bottom is almost entirely extra/out of season decor.  I have a shelf for each non-Christmas season (really: February - May, summer, and September - November) and then extra flower pots and table cloths and all of my bridesmaid bouquets (those might move to our closet soon). 

The dining table is mostly eaten at on the big holidays (Christmas morning, Easter morning) and when we have people over (although we mostly try to do that in the months it's nice enough to eat outside).   I also do puzzles here occasionally and sometimes Luke does homework and it's constantly a staging place for things that need to leave the house (library books get stacked up the night before they are returned, etc.)  

The front half of the front room really earns the room's hard working title.  It's our main tv watching area (we have a second TV in the basement but it's mostly for Matt to watch while working out).  I do my workouts here in the mornings (my weights for working out are under the bookshelf in my office) and we watch 95% of the tv we watch together here.  It's also where I read during quiet time or when everyone else is out of the house, when it's too cold for the porch.  AND it's the boys' primary play area.  We do not have a toy room or play room or anything else of the sort.  I am constantly asking the boys to get their Legos/army guys/whatever else, off the couch so I don't accidentally sit on them.  MOST of Sam's non-stuffed animal toys (or outside toys) are stored in this room and it's where we do most of our playing when Luke's at school.  Hot wheel tracks and Duplo building and so many games of Memory where he destroys me.  It's primary non-Lego, non-stuffed animal, inside toy storage as well as, really, our only inside seating area for when guests are over.  This room probably sees the most waking usage of any room in our house.   Part family room, dining room, play room, tv room, and exercise space. 

Matt's Office 

The room that really takes the cake is Matt's office.  The amount of function and storage we get out of this room is just astounding.  It's Matt's office which means his computer and a bookshelf a whole cabinet dedicated to Lego storage on top and my excess books on bottom (I have books in every room of the house besides the bathroom and kitchen.).  Then there is Luke's Lego Table which is self explanatory (another item on my to-clean-up-over-spring-break list).  Usually Luke builds in here but when he plays Legos he often takes them to the couch.  Then there is my reorganized craft storage.  This huge white cabinet (that Matt built) holds all of my sewing supplies as well as wrapping paper, gift bags & tissue paper, craft supplies for the boys, some home decor (out of season books I covered), and a basket dedicated to items that need to be returned or given to someone else.  I am often reconfiguring the baskets based on what I need storage for although many of them stay the same.  (The picture is old but the organization is nearly the same, other than the addition of the Lego table next to the cart and most of that wrapping paper being used up.)

When we refinished our hardwood floors almost 5 years ago, Matt also redid all the storage in the closet, adding the beautiful shelves around our chimney.  These shelves hold the content for MANY closets worth.  There are nearly all our games (just cards go elsewhere), puzzles, extra toiletries & medicine (some are stored in the bathroom but excess is here), extra bath towels (since there is absolutely no space for those in the bathroom), paper for crafts, kraft paper for wrapping, and our gift stashes.  This is a game closet/linen closet/gift closet all in one.  (Matt gets next to none of the storage in his office, although he does use the towels and plays the games.)  Ideally, all of this wouldn't be stored in Matt's office (I DREAM of having storage in the bathroom for the extra towels and TP (which is in the basement)).  BUT, rooms in our house rarely get to be just one thing (unless you are the bathroom).  

If we bought this house now and moved in with 2 kids, the way everything is arranged and organized now isn't necessarily the way we'd organize it all if we were starting from scratch but after 16 years of putting things where they fit, this is where we've ended up!  Even just writing out this list gave me some ideas of things to maybe organize a bit differently!  We definitely appreciate that while this house isn't big on space (and we'd LOVE another bathroom), we've still made it work for this long.  There are countless benefits to small spaces and being able to say no to things "because we just don't have the room!" is one of them.  We're forced to get a little creative and keep our possessions lower (although, to be clear, we still have A LOT of stuff) to make this house work for our family of 4.  

Do you keep items in unusual spaces?  Anyone else have towels co-mingling with puzzles co-mingling with a gift stash (really, that closet...blue ribbon).  I'd to hear about unusual storage solutions that work for you!

How We Get Stuff Done

We're going to be completely honest here.  When I was pulling the looking back links for my January 2022 monthly recap, I was pretty impressed with us for all the projects we had gotten done in the past.  Some of that was just due to the timing of the posts.  Writing about an organizing project seems much more appropriate in January than in December.  I always appreciate having things organized but I am not going to find time between all the Christmas prep to tackle a big organizing project in December.  I am DEFINITELY interested in that content in January.

So many of those January posts were projects that were actually completed earlier but I just didn't post about them until January (like the basement pantry, my craft shelves, and the front room shelves).  I remember very clearly when all those projects were in the beginning stages and when in most cases, they were pain points in the flow of our house.  All my best organizing projects come from recognizing and doing something about pain points (and that pain points is most often "we need a specific spot for this category of items" such as extra bath towels or food).  

All the above mentioned projects happened before we doubled our kids, as in, got Sam almost 4 years ago.  That year before we got him we were SUPER productive: redoing our front room floors, repainting our bedroom including the trim (SO MANY HOURS on that trim), redoing our linen closet, my craft shelves, the front room shelves, I ran my half marathon, and Matt started on the swing set.  We have yet to replicate that kind of productivity. 

And, YET, when I look around our house, especially when we recently showed the boys pictures of our house as we first saw it 16 years ago, we've still gotten things done.  We are always working on SOME project, often many projects.  Many things can drive me a bit bonkers in a day but my motivation to get things done is almost always there, even when the to-dos can be part of what drives me crazy.  

It helps that I am highly motivated by crossing things off a good to-do list, in fact I keep MANY of them going at any given time.  And that motivation is the driving force behind everything we complete.  I live and die by my lists (and a good Excel spreadsheet).  Everything can be broken down into smaller steps that I then check through.  Small steps make big progress. So here's the short list of how we do it:

We make a list.

We break that up into smaller items on a list.

We spread out those tasks.

We get stuff done.

I wish I could say we have a master list somewhere of all the projects we want to get done.  We have had various versions of these over the years but not a current one right now.  I have a list on my phone with 3 to-dos on it, with the done items going back to 2013-ish.  I keep the list mainly because it's good to see all that we HAVE accomplished.  At least once a year we sit down to make a big to-do list of current projects, usually in the spring when all of a sudden a bunch of outside tasks need done too.  Then the list gets put away and months later I find it and am amazed that all of our past stresses are now done and we forgot about the pain points.  Or we've decided we don't really want to do them anyways.  Or we just admit defeat on organizing the garage.  (What is the timeline on getting rid of items that haven't been used?  Like, if say, someone had a particular tool in the garage that they hadn't used in 12 years despite having all the working parts and safety gear...that seems like something you could get rid of, right?)

Our main master to-do list right now is mostly my 22 in 2022 list.  I start accumulating items for that at least a month before I write the post and then add to it as stuff comes to mind.  I also have a running list of "100 dreams" on my phone that isn't yet 100 items and occasionally I will reference that when making my 22 in 2022 type lists but that's more bucket list travel type items (or owning a blue car type items, one I finally accomplished in 2020!)  and less home project items (although I believe the long simmering "put in a sandbox for the boys" is on there).  

When I lock in my 22 in 2022 list, I have a general quarter-ish idea of when I hope to accomplish all the items.  A few of them stretch across the whole year (like our dates, eating local, and food holidays).  Some are more specific like tie-dying that seems more summer friendly than winter.  

I've written about my monthly to-do lists before, although I've been keeping them in my bullet journal for awhile now.  On the 1st of each month I make a project list for that month.  I pull from my 22 in 2022 list, recurring items I hope to do every month, the number of miles I plan to run, my monthly movie watching schedule (something I should blog about), upcoming holidays/birthdays, and looking back at my past year's list for that month.  Once I write things on that list I want them crossed off.  That doesn't always happen but I always aim for 100%.  

It's not always big steps on my 22 in 2022 projects but often just baby steps to keep things moving along.  One of my 22 in 2022 projects is to redo the wall over the buffet so this month I want to buy one piece of art for it.  I've also been toying with the layout even though I don't have all the pieces but to give me an idea of what sizes/orientations I am shopping for.

Regular check-ins are KEY and I update my monthly bullet journal list (including my monthly reading plan and book tracker) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  That is very frequently seeing what I still hope to get done in a month.  

The final to-do lists these items end up on is in my planner.  I am completely devoted to being a planner person now and I literally don't know how I would function without one.  There would be a lot of things slipping through the cracks!  At the beginning of a month I'll fill in my recurring tasks (including daily reading to the boys and Luke's nightly homework).  Then on Fridays I'll plan the following week, filling in my chores (I've rearranged the chores and assigned a few to Luke but the process is almost identical to this!), and adding items from my monthly projects lists as the days allow.  Sometimes, like mornings I work, I don't expect to get much done outside of normal tasks.  On afternoons my Mom comes to do homework with Luke I know I'll have a bit of time I can maybe photograph a project (with a Sam shadow) or maybe clean out a drawer or something.  So I slot in the monthly project to-dos around everything else, always knowing I want to completely check off my monthly and daily to-dos!  (And some months I get lucky/motivated and get more done than I had hoped to on my list.  But that's far from always.)

So items go from:

• My brain
• 22 in 2022 list
• Monthly project lists
• Weekly planner 

And then, somehow, they mostly get done!  I have yet to achieve that elusive 100% on an annual list but we are always creeping a bit closer!  And somehow, things continue to get done.  It's a lot of little steps, a lot of planning ahead, and just a heck of a lot of drive to check off my to-do lists.  Checking items off my to-do lists keeps me majorly in check!  Sometimes I get to check them off all 3 of my lists at once and it is EXTREMELY satisfying!

Finding a Home for Seasonal Books

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Last fall I wrote a short series about how I've been working on living a little more seasonally.  I like to read winter books in the winter and summer books in the summer.  I make various changes throughout our home as the seasons change and I've been making myself little capsule nail polish sets for each season, with nail polishes I already own.  I've just found great delight in embracing and living each season as they come.  (You can read those here: Living Seasonally, Changing with the Seasons, Opening/Closing Ceremonies.)

Of course, in my current state of life, that translates to reading seasonally appropriate picture books.  Picture books have, somehow, turned somewhat into a passion/obsession of mine with the boys and I reading around 1,000 new ones each year.  (I think that qualifies as a passion at best.)  I have good lists going on Goodreads for each season and plan a whole post about how we manage and read 150+ Christmas picture books, mostly in the month of December.  We rely heavily on the library but I also add to our picture/board book collection occasionally (particularly for the books that the library owns only a few copies of but are in high demand when in season.  I've been waiting months for a few winter books I still don't have.)  

Of course, with a small house and new items, there is often the dilemma of where to put them.  We floundered in this for awhile but it wasn't until I really started growing our collection last year that it became a problem.  I wanted somewhere to put our seasonal books that were separate from the rest of our kid books (currently in 3 locations around the house).  Also the seasonal library books that we hold onto for months at a time (if there is no hold line) and have read so I want them separate from our main library stash so I wouldn't have to think every day when I pick books to read "we already read those".  

There are few things I love like a new organizing challenge.  I finally came up with something super original.  I bought a basket from Target.  Then it was too small so I bought another bigger one and returned the first.  And that is where we are today.

 
As I wrote over 2 years ago, we try to give even temporary items a home because it's the only way to live in space without chaos.   Our kid library book storage hasn't moved since I wrote that post, just changed a bit (why did I ever keep them all flat???).  The boys and I are in here many times a day pulling books to read or putting ones back (that one seems to be just me).

The basket of seasonal books sits next to the tv stand, not too far from the couch where we usually read books. I took these pictures last week before I completely packed away all remnants of winter from our house.  There's some residual Valentine's books in there too.

Our seasonal books go in there as soon as I deem it is seasonal appropriate for them to be out.  Spring for me begins March 1st, whether or not the weather is agreeing with me.  We don't have a ton in the way of just spring books but this one and this one went in the basket!  Once we read seasonal books from the library and I've decided that I like them enough to read again, those will go in the basket too.  But not until we've read them.  Our library stack is more of a TBR for picture books (and sometimes "I need to take pictures of these and write captions for them for Instagram" too). 

 

In the off-seasons our seasonal books have many homes.  Most of the Christmas books are in the high shelves, behind baskets, in my office (which have largely stayed the same as the after picture in this post).  A few other seasonal books are up there too although at the moment I don't remember which (thank goodness we have a step-ladder!).  Some for seasons we don't have many books for live in the same part of our buffet as the non-seasonal, non-tall decor (as seen here).  I should have these all in one place but I'm experimenting to see what works best.  Again, a good organizing dilemma! 

I was excited about having a basket for easily setting apart our own seasonal books as well as one we read and reread and reread from the library.  It also made me appreciate how serious I've been taking this seasonality and my life in picture books.  We've continually made our small space work for us and there's room for all the important things, even a lot of picture books.

How I Became a Planner Person

When I was around 12 I really wanted a paper planner.  I don't know why I did but my budding organized self probably thought they seemed fun?  I don't know that I had so much to plan that I needed a planner.  My Mom must have mentioned this to my aunt because a bit later a planner showed up in the mail (with a note that my Mom had mentioned that I wanted a planner).  Getting unexpected gifts in the mail was ALWAYS exciting (still is, to be honest.  I get excited for packages I've paid for because I tend to forget what I've ordered as soon as I hit submit.).  I know I still have that note and possibly the planner.  I don't think I ever wrote much in it but I liked having it.

Our high school issued us all planner every year (I KNOW I still have all those.  The school rules were all in the front, the "no cell phones at any school event ever" rule is amusing now) and I used those faithfully for my assignments, tests, grades, practice schedule, etc.  In college I bought myself a planner every year for the same purpose (I still have those too!  #aspiringminimalist).  

Then I finally entered a world without school and I didn't have much of a need for a planner.  I had a Day-Timer when I worked at the accounting firm but that was more for keeping track of my time because we had to account for all our working hours every day and had to enter and submit those for billing purposes.  But I didn't have a personal planner again for many years.

Then I started following Emily Ley.  I had read her book Grace Not Perfection after seeing it recommended somewhere and that led to me following her on Instagram.  A few years of that wore me down and I wanted a pretty paper planner. I didn't know what I was going to write in it because I felt pretty organized already.  BUT...they were pretty.  Matt gave me my 2019 planner for Christmas in 2018.  It was beautiful.  

And then it sat mostly blank for ~6 months

I didn't know what I was going to write in my planner.  At that point, Luke was in school 180 days a year.  I worked one morning most weeks.  There were the periodic doctor appointments and haircuts and the like but our schedule just didn't have a lot going on.   I wrote a post when I was just over 3 months into my planner.  In that post I mention that I really hope to get a lot of use out of my planner when summer hits and I'm trying to balance getting things done with fun things for the boys.

And you know what?  That summer is when I really came to live and die by my planner.

For some reason, our summer, the season that is supposed to be laid back and care free, is typically (in non-pandemic years) our busiest time of the year.  It's different than December busy which is a lot of things that "need" done but mostly at home (online shopping, wrapping, baking, decorating, family movie nights, etc.).  Summer we are out and about far more than any other time of the year (as well as the months that border summer, April, May, September, October).  We're at the lake.  We go on family bike rides downtown.  The boys and I are at the zoo once or twice a week when we have a pass.  We meet friends/cousins at the park.  We go to baseball games.  The weekends we aren't at the lake we're usually going to a cookout or a family get to together.  Our summers (again, not in a pandemic) are very busy.  And I needed somewhere to help me get the balance of fun summer activities along side all the out and about we were doing.

Enter, my planner.

A few weeks ago, I pack those tasks lists!  And then get them done.  (The unchecked items on Friday are reading to the boys which I did after I had put my planner away for the weekend.)

 
I used it SO MUCH that summer, 2019, to plan our days.  Our weeks.  To get things done but also have fun with the boys.  To keep track of my many to-dos (house cleaning, blogging, I am good at finding tasks to fill my days).  Just like I live by "a place for everything and everything in it's place" for keeping our house mostly clutter free, I rest easier (literally) knowing that the things I want/need to get done have been assigned a day and they will (very likely) get done.

After that I never looked back.  My planner is like my second brain.  Luke even told me yesterday "will you write that in your planner so you remember t

o do that?"  

I pride myself in having a pretty good memory (I know A TON of birthdays, 200 maybe?) but there is something SO FREEING about writing things down and then being able to forget about it until the day I need to remember it.  I now write down EVERYTHING. 

Part of this also stemmed from moving my planner from living on my desk next to my computer to living on our kitchen counter.  I put it away on the weekends (when I don't have a lot of to-dos) but Sunday night - Friday evening it is out and open to the current week.  I have a dedicated pen that sits in the crack.  

This is my original 2019 planner, it is noticeably neater than my current one!

I write down my tasks for the week (especially since my beloved Swipes app is no longer usable).  I write down Luke's daily chores for the week.  Sometimes I plan out my Instagram posts.  I write down when Luke has a dress down day at school or hot lunch or his day for show and tell.  I write down reading to Luke & Sam as tasks each day because I like crossing things off AND I like reading to them.  I write down blog tasks, phone calls I need to make, doctor appointments, or sitters I need to schedule.  I write down EVERYTHING.

In my ever evolving quest to spend less time on my phone, I've started tracking my time in my planner and then transferring it to my Toggl app in chunks, thus, keeping me from picking up my phone just to track time and then getting sucked into something else.  This has been HUGELY helpful.  

My aim every day is to full all the tasks lines with to-dos.  I feel like I've had a productive day when I've filled all the lines and then gotten them all done.  Sometimes it is definitely difficult to come up with enough tasks for the lines.  Then I start making easy tasks just so I can cross them off.  Still makes me feel productive!  I HATE having uncrossed off tasks at the end of the day so writing things down is hugely motivating for me to get them done!

Not only do I have a personal life planner, I also have one for work.  Unlike in my professional accountant days, this one I use to keep track of tasks.  When I have a window of time to work, I don't want to waste time trying to remember what I need to be doing.  Before I finish one work session I write down the things I need to start with on my next.  It's VERY helpful with my sporadic and inconsistent working schedule (all dictated by me) to know right where to jump back in.

My home planner came with a hefty notes section which I use for things I need to keep for awhile but not forever but also don't want to lose that piece of paper with that one thing written down.  I take notes at teacher conferences with it, when I've had to call the lake trash people about our continued missed pick-ups (Yes, I have taken my planner to the lake, mainly just on our lake vacation week.)  Things like that that I need to know where my notes are and this way I know they are all in my planner.

I am on my 3rd Simplified Planner and I like those because of their quality, their pretty covers, and I know exactly what to expect.  (I have a calendar year weekly, in Happy Floral this year.)  But they are also a little pricey.  My work ones (that work pays for but I pick out) are $10-$15 ones from Amazon that have all been fine too (I have this one for 2021).  The price doesn't really matter, as long as there is a lot of space for tasks and it can lay flat.  The laying flat is HUGE (and difficult in my SP at this point in the year).

I became a planner person, I found another aspect of my life to super organize and it has been enormously freeing on my mind.  I can't see not having one for many many years.  It really has become my second brain and helped me stay more focused on the task at hand.  Even for me, a person who mostly aimed to leave the house as little as possible BEFORE a pandemic, it's not much of an exaggeration to say it's changed my life.  

Did I expect to have 1400+ words about my planner(s).  Nope.  But here we are.  And I feel strongly about them all!

 
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Organizing the Legos

One projects on my 20 in 2020 list that I was excited and VERY ready to have done was getting Luke's Legos organized.  He has a lot of Legos.  I knew that but I really realized it when I was cleaning up the table to do this post.  I'm not sure why we keep buying him MORE sets.  Actually, I do.  Lego keeps making cool sets and we are the suckers that keep buying them.  Although there is a growing number of sets that Luke has saved up money to buy on his own too.  Also, this isn't nearly all the Legos in the house.  Matt has a china cabinet display filled with his Star Wars sets (many gifted by me) and I have a whole tub in the basement of all of my disassembled sets from childhood that I have not yet seen fit to share with my kids.  I am very precious about my Legos.

Luke's Legos have mostly lived in Matt's office since Sam was big enough to move around, so for almost two years.  Hypothetically this is to keep Sam out of the Legos except that Sam knows how to open the door and he's not really in an "eat all the Legos" stage anymore.  Although Luke is also rather precious about his Legos and doesn't like a little brother getting into them.  At least having them out of constant view does keep them off Sam's mind a little more and he really doesn't get into them much.  When he goes in Matt's office he's much more interested in going through my fabric stash to drag out the remnants from his favorite blanket and "night-nights" (burb cloths, kid doesn't need a burb cloth but they are definitely his comfort item of choice.  He never sleeps without one.) 

Two years ago I had the bright idea that Luke and I should sort all his Legos by color, which we did over Christmas break, and then we could rebuild all of his really cool sets (read: Star Wars, mainly) that he had gotten and since destroyed.  We did that, it took awhile.  Then I started pulling pieces for one set, realized it was taking forever, and Luke was impatient enough that he rebought the set with his own money.  Still, the pieces stayed somewhat sorted into boxes until this summer.  Then, Matt and I had finally had a plan.

The plan went through a lot of variations but this is where it ended up after a lot of discussing and expanding.  We bought six baskets from Target (these and these, please don't add up how much we spent just on baskets for this...more than a few Lego sets worth).  Matt had leftover wood for pretty much the whole thing (Matt collects wood like Luke collects Legos) and so our only other expense was wheels for the bottom.  We even used leftover paint from various projects so that was free too!  The base blue was even a reject for our bathroom walls (literally how I had it labeled "reject bathroom paint") that was deemed not white enough for the walls.  I was excited to finally have a use for it!

Let's take a tour (just don't look too close at the sorting...I cleaned it up a little but we are mostly relying on a 7 year old to keep this straight)!

The top smaller basket is minifigs and their various accessories (besides all the ones on display on the top and with other sets in another basket).

Under that is "special pieces", mainly ones we don't want getting lost in the abyss of general pieces.  And under that are car parts and some windows and doors.

The top long basket is overflow for assembled sets and other things Luke has made.  Almost all his sets are Star Wars or Marvel.  Kid likes what he likes.

Under that, the middle long basket, is the general pieces.  There are a lot.  Luke learned the hard way that this basket is heavy when it was pulled out a little too far.  Don't worry, toenails grow back.  The bottom basket is some boards and other large pieces/things he's made.

Matt painted different backgrounds for a few scenes on top and Luke was especially delighted when he realized it looks like his jet skis are backing into the water.  He has a little knowledge of that!  I didn't realize until after I took the pictures that the jet skis are on the trailer backwards, we all know better than that at this point and DO drive our jet ski right onto the trailer when loading it up. (As it currently is, in our garage as Matt repairs the drive shaft.  I now know what a drive shaft is!)

And that's it!  This seems straight forward and the final result is, it just took a lot of discussing and measuring and me saying "It's HOW BIG?!?!" once I saw it in the house.  It does just barely fit between my craft storage (to be fair: I share my office with coats and a vacuum and various other family used things too) and Matt's desk, almost like it was made to fit there (it was).  Next to impossible to open the window without moving it but since we've opened the window about three times in the 14 years we've been here (and two of those days were to air out the room while the top paint was drying), I think we'll be ok. 

For now, Luke has plenty of room to organize his Legos, until Sam is big enough to have his own Legos and we have allocate some baskets to Sam too.  I am delighted every single time I go in or even walk past Matt's office and don't see Legos all over the floor.  Obviously sometimes there ARE Legos all over the floor but keeping them more out of the reach of a little brother is pretty good motivation for keeping them cleaned up!  Nobody wants to step on those in the dark!

Finding a good organizing solution to another part of our house makes me so happy.

Painting the FINAL Kitchen Cupboard

Almost 6 years ago, when we only had one kid and I had only had one foot surgery, I painted a cupboard in our kitchen.  It went from a dingy yellow to a bright white and the improvement was definitely worth some leftover paint and a couple hours of time.  That lead to me painting inside the closets in my office and inside all the upper cabinets in the kitchen, over a period of about a year (2014-2015).

I was really proud of that accomplishment and thrilled with the results.  I started with leftover white paint and gradually had to buy a couple more gallons but that cost is relatively small for how much of an improvement it brought to our cupboards.  Also a PRIME opportunity to touch every single thing in those cupboard and really pare down what we needed.  There is nothing like a good, fresh backdrop to make me not want to keep everything.

A couple years ago I painted a few of the lowers in our kitchen but didn't blog about them.  About a year ago I painted under the kitchen sink.  For 6 years I had our large corner cabinet looming.  I considered painting it SO MANY TIMES.  Then talked myself out of it SO MANY TIMES.  I could always find some yard work or other house organizing projects to do to fill a Saturday.  Also, I really didn't want to paint that cupboard, I just wanted it magically done.

Well. Then we got quarantined.  I was initially stressed about many things (my husband working in a hospital for one, the health of loved ones for another, having to homeschool a third stressor) but once that initial stress wore off, I was concerned with how we could keep moving on projects when our shopping options were much more limited.  I knew the time had finally come.  I had paint.  I had contact paper.  I had to paint the cupboard.

Matt had Good Friday off work and it was chilly and gross outside so I knew we'd be inside all day.  It felt like the perfect day to finally tackle this tasks.  Luke had the day off school and I was HIGHLY motivated to get the painting done on Friday so I could put it all back together on Saturday and thus get our dining table back for Easter baskets on Sunday.  It was the perfect storm.

Let me tell you, I quickly remembered why I had been stalling on this project for FIVE years.  I got more up close and personal with that cabinet than I ever expected or hoped to get.  I spent a good amount of time almost entirely inside the cabinet.  Scraping off the (very) old contact paper and getting 3+ coats of paint back there was no joke.  I don't think people are supposed to be that up close and confined with paint fumes.  It was humorous in how weird/uncomfortable it was.  I knew I bought it upon myself and I knew I'd be so much happier with the result.

It took a good two hours to remove the contact paper and I finished the first coat 5 minutes before we watched Good Friday services on Facebook (I may have had paint in my hair).  I had a tight schedule to get 4 coats of a paint/primer all on before we went to bed.  By the last coat I wasn't too picky with the far back corner.  I expect it will at least be decades before anyone else is close enough to see that I wasn't doing my best painting back there.

I woke up on Saturday morning so excited.  For one, it was Holy Saturday which meant Easter was almost here, we were about to celebrate Jesus' resurrection and that is always exciting, pandemic or not.   I had also knocked out a long dreaded project, got all the coats on in time to clear the table for Easter.  It was incredibly exciting. Now every time I open the cabinet I don't have to think, even in the way back of my head: I have to paint this some day.

There was a little reorganizing in putting things back.  A few things (apple dehydrator, baby bottles saved for a potential #3) got moved down the basement pantry shelves and I bought a few new containers for here (via Target pick-up and then letting them sit in my basement for a week to "de-COVID" (I don't know if that's a thing but made me feel better.)).  The large white basket in the back holds various lunchboxes (one benefit to homeschooling is that it got me out of lunch packing for many months!).  Then there are pitchers and water bottles not currently in use.  

I don't know how much paint I've gone through in all my cabinet/cupboard painting.  I don't know how many hours I've spent.  I don't know how many days I had an entire cabinet's contents on the dining table (I mean, relatively few over 5 years).  I do know I have FIVE different contact papers throughout all the cabinets I painted just in the kitchen (could have planned that one a little better).

However, I am very happy with the results and so glad I took this project on so many years ago.  I know it's just paint and contact paper but it also made the cabinets "mine".  It made them look cleaner which made me want to pare down what we keep in ALL of them.  It made me want to keep them looking clearer and not filled with stuff.  I always appreciate a good organizing project; I really love them.  I also really appreciate the process of going through things and really determining what we need and use.

It makes me happy to open my cupboard and see the bright white paint and know that everything has a place.  I know that's not for everyone but I do get a little bit of joy out of it every single time.  And also finally getting that project checked off my mental to-do list.  I never put it on my 20 in 2020 or 19 in 2019 list because I really didn't want to have to do it!  So getting that checked off is still a little bit amazing to me.  I remark to Matt at least once a week about how glad I am that it is done (which is better than constantly bemoaning that I still "needed" to do it!).  Life is weird right now but my cupboard is painted.  I'm going to take joy in that.

And a good before (after I took everything out) and after!

My long cabinet/cupboard journey is almost fully documented on the blog:
Painting my Drawers
Under the Kitchen Sink: A Before & After
Pantry Cupboard 
Alcohol cabinet
Upper cabinets (holiday dishes)
Baking cupboard
Kitchen cupboard over the stove
Kitchen dishes cupboard
Office cupboard
Office closets
Kitchen cleaning cupboard